“Doomsday Preppersexplores the lives of otherwise ordinary Americans who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it. Unique in their beliefs, motivations, and strategies, preppers will go to whatever lengths they can to make sure they are prepared for any of life’s uncertainties. And with our expert’s assessment, they will find out their chances of survival if their worst fears become a reality.”

Here’s my take: Thank goodness they don’t live next door.

They may be extreme, and heavily armed and possess an exorbitant amount of canned peaches, but this doesn’t mean we can’t learn a few things from these folks ready to go all Mad Max if necessary. These preppers undoubtedly touch on some important survival strategies that certainly apply to the cyber-worlds where many of us live.

Here are some tips, inspired by those inspired to fill fruit cellars with ammunition and 40-pound bags of cous cous, which might keep your digital life intact in the event of a natural, manmade or otherworldly disaster. You might want to mark this down on your Maya calendar.

The Upside of Backup and Virtualization

There really is no downside to backing up your data using cloud-based backup tools for your desktop and mobile devices. The same goes for virtualizing, say, your small business. Once society begins to re-establish itself after the asteroid hits, it will obviously be a big reassurance knowing that all of your Microsoft programs will be there waiting for you, courtesy of virtualization via Vmware .

The cloud has huge potential to make an impact on disaster recovery and the amount of time it takes to get back up and running.

Bug Out Bag: Don’t Leave Home Without It

Doomsday Preppers often features the Bug Out Bag, basically a bag of gear that’s ready-to-go and filled with essentials, such as food, water, first aid kit, flashlight and 12,000 rounds of armor-piercing incendiary shells. Because you never know when those Canadian revolutionaries will want what’s yours.

But it really is a smart idea to have a disaster bag packed (say a few days before an expected weather event), and even take it one step further: Prepare a backpack with cellphone and laptop chargers and a flash drive filled with important documents, contact numbers and emergency information. Throw in some spare batteries and that old laptop collecting dust, and at least you’ve given yourself the chance to alert North Dakotans that the Canadians are coming.

News Flash: Invest in a Flash Drive

Light, secure, easy to disguise and having the potential to hold tons of information, flash drives are an easy way to ensure you have vital information at your fingertips, even as those Arctic aliens try to pry it from your cold hands.

Security!

It all comes down to security and providing you and your family with a sense of comfort and preparedness in an uncertain world. Security from a cyber-attack or well-disguised phishing campaign. Security from those afflicted with the zombie sickness. In both cases, vigilance is key. Pay attention to where a Google search takes you before clicking on a suspect link. Pay attention to where you choose to store your photos and documents – sometimes free storage comes with a big cost.

And, most importantly – and this cannot be overstated enough – pay attention as your neighbor’s daughter walks aimlessly, slowly and stiffly toward your compound. She is likely one of the undead.

I just stuck my head out the window, and to quote John Madden, “it’s hittin’ weather.” And if it’s “hittin’ weather,” it can mean that we’ve just been charged with a misdemeanor, or it’s time for some for football. Here at Mozy, we love four things:

Backing up our customer’s important data

A warm crepe, the New York Times and a 1963 Chianti

Hall & Oates 1982 masterwork “H20”

Fantasy Football

In fact, we’re so excited for the upcoming football season that we want to involve twelve of you to join us in a season long, fantasy football-fest. We’ll be running the league from our corporate offices, and have twelve openings for team managers. Email us at contest@mozy.com and let us know why we should select you for one of these twelve coveted spots as well as letting us know which NFL team you root for. We’re picking the participants on Tuesday, so make sure you email us before then (automatic snake draft happens on Wednesday). And remember, we will only select the most dedicated, ferociously feverish fans to join us.

The winner will receive bragging rights and the following prize package:

200,000 Delta SkyMiles to fly to any NFL game, anywhere in the WORLD Delta flies

An official NFL jersey of your choice. Signed by Mozy!

Some free Mozy accountage

A hearty slap on the back

There will also be occasional weekly prizes for those teams that feature great performances by backup players, killer stats from the bench, or other incredible feats.

Why are we doing this, you ask? Well, besides the fact that both football and Mozy are awesome, we love backups of all types. In fact, some of our favorite backups are in the NFL. Chester Taylor, Felix Jones, Mark Brunell, and our own personal favorite, Sage Rosefels. One day you backups will rise up and dominate! Just like our own Mozy backups do.

So what are you waiting for? Request your own team and get ready to travel the world with your newfound fame.

One of the things we hear about a lot is that customers want to do more with their data than just back it up. Well, today Comcast is announcing the release of Secure Backup & Share, an easy and safe way for customers to share and preserve their digital files. This service is awesome for multiple reasons, including:

Data backup – Comcast customers will be able to back up their essential files to a remote, secure location via the Internet. All Comcast customers will receive a complementary 2GB account with their subscription, with additional storage plans available.

Online access – Comcast customers’ backed-up files can be accessed and restored via the Internet – any time, anywhere.

Sharing – Once their data is backed up, users will be able to share photos, documents, music, and videos with family and friends via an easy-to-use dashboard that’s available across multiple devices.

One more thing – did we mention that this new service is powered by Mozy?

We’re thrilled to be able to partner with an industry giant like Comcast, and we’re looking forward to being able to provide the peace of mind and convenience of online data backup and sharing to their 15 million customers, starting today.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 NASA mission that put Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the moon. This incredible accomplishment was captured in a black and white video of the two astronauts taking “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What better way to celebrate the 40th anniversary than by watching the original footage? Only one problem – NASA couldn’t find the tapes.

It turns out that NASA had unintentionally recorded over the original footage of the famous space walk. According to The Associated Press, a digital film restoration company has been hired to restore the video, but it is an expensive and time-consuming process:

“The $230,000 refurbishing effort is only three weeks into a monthslong project, and only 40 percent of the work has been done… The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and ’80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.”

We sympathize with NASA and hope they can recover the information. All over the world, however, people are now compiling an increasing amount of digital information. Their data represents family videos and photos, music collections, and financial information. We don’t want anyone – from families all the way up to NASA – to lose vital information.

One way Mozy helps you to preserve your information is that it provides you with the ability to roll back to previous versions of a file. That way, when a file is accidentally deleted or modified, you can roll back to a previous, pristine version.

So congrats, NASA, on an amazing achievement. We look forward to seeing the remastered footage!